Pizza Hut tops Social Brands 100 poll, but Google, Amazon and YouTube fail to make top 50

Pizza Hut has been named the top brand in a poll that examined which companies are best at building and maintaining social relationships with young consumers.

Greggs, Play.com, Waterstone's and Krispy Kreme all completed the top five.

The list was created following an audit of the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ profiles for 100 brands that have a particular resonance with the 18 to 24 year-old age group as decided in a survey by Voxburner.

Over a four week period from February to March 2014, Headstream and Social Bakers then looked at the value of content, whether they had an authentic tone of voice, and their timeliness across and gave each brand a ranking.

“As we know, listening to your consumer, understanding their journey and their values is vital to forming a win-win relationship with them,” said Steve Sponder, managing director of Headstream.

“Brands that engage well with the youth market are ones that really understand their customer; their interests, behaviours, rituals and considerations, and develop their content accordingly. This is vital for the success of any social brand.”

Completing the top 10 was Pepsi Max, Comic Relief, Warburtons, Starbucks and McCain. They all beat Amazon, YouTube and Google, who failed to make the top 50.

“Despite providing a platform for the majority of brands within the top 100, they themselves are not seen as successful with their own social media efforts. Perhaps this is due to the fact they already play an important and relevant part in 18 to 24 year olds' lives that they feel social engagement is not a priority,” added Sponder.

The report also looked at how Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have evolved over the past year and how users are engaging with brands on them. Facebook continues to be the largest social platform for consumers, but Headstream suggested that with the platform’s growth slowing down at the start of 2014 to a user base of 31 million accounts (1.5 million less that at the start of 2013), brands are beginning to look elsewhere to target the ‘youth generation.’ On Facebook, content was a major factor, with the most engaged brands creating value-added content which consumers felt they could relate to and want to share with their peers. The highest performing brands also embraced both positive and negative conversation. Despite coming sixth overall, Pepsi Max was the top brand for engaging with its community on Facebook.

Meanwhile on Twitter, WHSmith was the top performing brand using it for the key functions of broadcasting to its audience on a wider level and also using it well as a a customer service tool.Finally, on G+, Greggs was the top performing brand, with Headstream noting that that the four brands that performed well on G+, also appeared in the top ten overall ranking.